Journalist Tool

Kineticist

  • HDashboard
  • IItems
  • ↓Ingest
  • SSources
  • KBeats
  • BBriefs
  • RIntel
  • QSearch
  • NName Review
  • +Health

v0.1.0

← Back to items

Wii Suck @ Video Games - Episode 7 - Guitar Hero Van Halen

Poor Man's Pinball Podcast·podcast_episode·analyzed·Sep 13, 2023
View original
Export .md

Analysis

claude-haiku-4-5-20251001 · $0.019

TL;DR

Wii Suck podcast reviews Guitar Hero Van Halen with minimal focus amid tangential stories.

Summary

This is an episode of the "Wii Suck @ Video Games" podcast where hosts Mal and Chris review Guitar Hero: Van Halen (2009). The episode is largely off-topic, with the hosts discussing a community yard sale where they found Wii games, sharing personal anecdotes about Packers jerseys and an exchange student named Sarah, and tangentially referencing pinball. The actual game review is minimal, with the hosts giving it a 5/10 rating and noting Van Halen as a solid rock band with depth in the soundtrack.

Key Claims

  • Guitar Hero: Van Halen was released on December 22nd, 2009

    high confidence · Mal states this as a factual release date

  • The game featured 25 epic Van Halen tracks plus three Eddie Van Halen signature solos

    high confidence · Mal reads this from notes about the game's content

  • Eddie Van Halen died relatively recently (at time of recording)

    medium confidence · Mal states 'He just passed away... I want to maybe within the last year. I don't know when he died. It was relatively recently ish.' (Eddie Van Halen died October 6, 2020)

  • The hosts found multiple Wii games at a community yard sale for $1 each

    high confidence · Mal and Chris describe finding games including Monster Trux Arena, Just Dance 3 and 4, Wheel of Fortune, Madden 07, and others

  • The hosts have a previous Guitar Hero save file from an exchange student named Sarah who was skilled at the game

    high confidence · Chris mentions 'God help us if we still have her save file' and references Sarah destroying songs in Guitar Hero World Tour

Notable Quotes

  • “My closet is becoming where ex-packers go to die.”

    Chris @ early in episode — Humorous aside about collecting old Packers jerseys

  • “I have like three that are Aaron Rodgers and he's now a turncoat and is playing with the jet.”

    Mal @ early segment — Personal commentary on NFL player Aaron Rodgers' team change

  • “If we pick one of these, we might not be back for that show. We literally might try it and die.”

    Chris @ during game list — Joking about the difficulty of Gold's Gym workout games

  • “Eddie Van Halen is one of the greatest guitarists that's ever lived. He's passed away. It's like Hendrix. And there's like two or three others and then like him.”

    Mal @ game discussion section — Recognition of Eddie Van Halen's historical significance as a guitarist

  • “I'm gonna go with a 5 as always we like to delve into what through what the what do the people say”

    Mal @ review section — Hosts' rating decision for the game being reviewed

Entities

MalpersonChris CraftpersonSarahpersonDan the ManpersonDevon LaFortpersonEddie Van HalenpersonGuitar Hero: Van HalengameGuitar Hero World TourgameWii Suck @ Video GamesorganizationMetacriticorganizationAvatargame

Signals

  • ?

    content_signal: Wii Suck @ Video Games podcast episode reviewing Guitar Hero: Van Halen; tangentially mentions pinball industry connection via host Mal who 'work around' a small town with pinball

    medium · Mal states: 'we just came back from a long the game used to be a long, weird journey through a small town pinball that I work around'

  • ?

    community_signal: Hosts acknowledge fan engagement via listener Dan the Man/Devon LaFort and reference Toucan Sammy as #1 fan who beat out others in listener ranking

    high · Mal states 'Dan the man did reach out And he does listen' and 'Toucan Sammy beat everyone he is our number one'

  • ?

    gaming_nostalgia: Hosts discuss nostalgic memories of playing Guitar Hero World Tour with exchange student Sarah, establishing the game's social appeal and their own skill limitations

    high · Chris mentions Sarah 'destroy some setlets' and fondly remembers playing with her; hosts note they struggled even on easy difficulty

Transcript

groq_whisper · $0.068

0:00
How to Convert Phonetic Screens to Your Até We suck at video games. Big show James Bond. 007. Get it everyone. My name is Foghorn Leghorn. Wait no. My name is Mal and with me as always... Craft Bruce Alley. Her name doesn't change. My name changes. I would forget my name if I changed it. Quite often. Yes. What are you going to do? So this is the show that's dedicated to reviewing Wii games one at a time. We read them one game at a time. Exciting day. We just came back from a long The game used to be a long, weird journey through a small town that I work in. We don't live there. I live about 20 minutes away. It was the, what do they call it? Community Yard Sale. It's where everyone put stuff up and we had a pocket full of ones like we were going to a strip club. We got some deals. We did. My closet is becoming where ex-packers go to die. Right. If there's an ex-packer, I have his jersey and today I secured one of the The granddaddies of them all far. I almost yes, I know I just I have some where they're so old like It's just crazy. So anything about this is before we left the house. I was like I really need a new Packers shirt I should probably get one that doesn't have a player on it because I have like three that are Aaron Rodgers and he's now a turncoat and Is playing with the jet? Hey, man still like the guy. I know he's funny. I know. But you can't like go out and GOOSE I can wear an Aaron Rodgers shirt right now. JOHN Oh contraire mon frair. I can and will. GOOSE See it's fine if it was two quarterbacks ago but the last one you still kinda butt hurt about. JOHN Oh I see. GOOSE Well I am anyway. JOHN Well just wear your ha ha Clinton dicks jersey. GOOSE There we go. JOHN Which I bought as like a 3x and it's about a small whatever. So we did happen to find some games out in the wild. GOOSE We did. It was gnarly and nasty. Yes, three of them weren't bad. The other ones, we might have got something. They were so gross. It was one of those houses, sometimes you go to a yard sale and you're like, well, this is just a regular, you know, just a yard sale. And then sometimes you go and you're like, I'm pretty sure they don't live here. This is an abandoned house and they're selling this for crack money. And they found them somewhere. And that's where I found all the Wii games. But we still did have quite the score. What did we get for a buck each? Yes, so today we got Monster Trux Arena. Nice, yes. Trux is spelled T-R-U-X, by the way. Don't spell it correctly. We don't need any of that crap. Right. Okay, go ahead. We got Just Dance3 and 4. From all the unanswered questions from Just Dance1 and 2. Yes. Then we got WheelOfFortune, Madden07. Which I, my wig was blown when you, when I looked that up and I was like, what do you mean there's none there? Check again. Check out John Madden. Check out EA Sports. I have every single one of them like basically real and sealed for the PlayStation 2. So now we have 07 for the week. Bad news, now we have it for the week. You have to move Madden games to go to the bathroom in most retro game stores. They're worth literally zero. So I lost a dollar on that. Okay, go ahead. Then we got Backyard Games, Sandlot TheFatSluggers Yep Gold's Gym, DanceWorkout God help us if we pick one of those. Yep. We have two Gold's Gym workouts. One's cardio and one's dance. If we pick one of these, we might not be back for that show. We literally might try it and die. Like in the living room, just collapse from a heart attack. We'll try to let you know what happened. Just the doctor. In our will, we'll have the doctor have to like go on air and say how we died from Gold's Gym. Okay, go ahead. We're going to leave a number for you to call. If we pick a Gold's Gym cardio or dance routine, let's just say it probably won't be a positive review even though it should be one. We'll let Toucan Sammy, we'll have him. Toucan Sammy, Samson, Sam, what is it? Toucan Sammy. ToucanSammyD. No wait, let me start over. Damn it, Glenn! Tuken Sammy, YosemiteSam, The Doctor will be calling you to let us know we died. And you can have some of our Wii stuff that Tao doesn't want. Okay, so what else did we get? Then we also got Thrillville, Off the Rails Yeah, I don't know what that is. I don't either. And then EA Playground. Wow. Which I can only assume the way EA is. You probably, they give you like one game This week in Pinball Johnny Pneumonic Black Water Kaneda Pinball Podcast Twippies Awards translite It just garbage town and it just so disgusting no one even wants to look through them That where you gonna find like one of these wild games you like oh my god Yeah and we they had like probably Half a dozen or a dozen more that we already had yeah, and also and I was gonna get Gottlieb Great the Hall of Fame Gottlieb pinball game for PlayStation 2. I already had it I was just gonna get it like I was like I don't get a second for a dollar I was like hmm, but it's so gross and everything was so gross, you know Obvs为什么 flew lived Exp iPhones briefings that are all punitive articles on the passages of cespa4 xu, tas интересноNęba, ksie etmeka, kia-skolja, Kodéksaby bewikh, gar Kiaقيfonènz , sakaliksie, sahtAmeric utilizingCEIBY mu лlined, chu shortsy nonnviblegaru nard разб Siri months-old g이비움장衛 στο 말을팔창, kmw-au겸옵장조제건� custard-정 잠깐만 아�IB dém 또 ako do às씨포�ãy naw 압갑 resolve Saturday equinox zawszenn 남 아주는데요 icha attended 2 So same good a good mix to go to throw into the to the magic pickle jar over there and all right So does look like the just dance has changed from a number to the year edition Oh, so that's why it was just 18. They don't have 18 of those. No, they just started saying well, it was 2018 Cuz you could get it right now at either Walmart or Best Buy Justin's 3.23 edition really. Yeah for the Wii not for the Wii It looks like it's for the switch or Xbox But I think they actually had the Wii up until like last oh like no kidding. I
Van Halen
organization
7:14
Might be making this up in my head because I do suffer some rolling strokes that I don't acknowledge as
7:19
Pointed out by my bloody eye Gross we want to get off off track We went to get glasses and the guys like you what happened here. I like what are you talking about? Yeah? It's half of its red. It's so disgusting, but my glasses are pretty pretty shiny and epic okay, so um Before we go before we do go into the to this week's game though I will say Dan the man did reach out And he does listen because my rah I picked Dan the man as being the the number one fan, but it turned out it was Toucan Sammy Sussamity Sam beat everyone he is our number one so Dan the man's our number two yes, thanks, Dan the man Devon LaFort, 불� portable Lesson proving Lex motive Management 演 assisted 境하�ma 야 캐�ди 자비 싶게 � plastics 소퇴 Most of them are Guitarhero and then there's a couple of offshoots you'll see when I start reading the list. Guitarhero3, GuitarheroAerosmith, GuitarheroWorldTour, GuitarheroMetallica, which I have to get. Yes, we do. GuitarheroSmashHits, Guitarhero5, DJHero, BandHero, GuitarheroVanHalen, GuitarheroWarriorsOfRock, and DJHero2. So that's a lot of Guitarhero. Now we have three different ones I think. I think we have the Aerosmith one. And I think we have the World Tour which is the one I believe that we had when Sarah was here. Because immediately when we played it we had an exchange student who she was so much fun. We had a lot of exchange students over the year. They were all fun. They were all fun and awesome. But Sarah was the one that used to play the Wii with us the most. And she was really good at Guitar Hero. And the shooting game which was a link crossbow. Yes. I can't wait to play that I can't wait till we draw that one So immediately when that came doing this came on at first all I had to find the controller and put it together and then it didn't work But because it was like the angle I was sitting so I was like, okay There's some technical difficulties getting this guitar hero up and running but then when I did I immediately like felt like that wave of nostalgia thinking of watching Sarah just like destroy some setlets and I'm like, well, I can't Susanic Tier, R letzteRe² Mikei K1 Response34, Tomha ondan radi Dearly Will stump TravisAf turbulent엽 moments Reictional RawRRC3N crucified and the faith to typing OLG condστructure You know, I'm so off. And we were playing easy too. Yeah, like super easy. That's just like three fingers. Yeah. But it wasn't working right at first. Right. And I was like, it's not me, it's the controller. Yeah. But then when I stood directly in front of it, then we got all that worked out. Then it was starting to work. Yeah, but I still was not good. You still didn't? No. Do you like these games? Or do you like anything about them? Well, I mean, they're fun because you can like facts Yeah the songs You know that was really neat and you could custom like you could on this game. You could do a like career mode Yeah, which was nice Yeah, you know what? We're forgetting to set the stage man. Ah, see we're all over the place So when was this release now we talked about is the this was a guitar hero Van Halen. It was released on December 22nd 2009 yes, that was a Tuesday of course. What was the top song Empire State of Mind by Jay-z And never and Alicia Keys never heard that Probably have is it like it was an Empire State of Mind. I never heard that one. So what was the top movie? The Avatar avatar yes that we all know that because 28 years later avatar 2 just came out and What now what fun facts did you get I found absolutely no fun facts? You know what the only fun fact I know is it was your mom's birthday nothing any interest happened No, like nothing my notes say nothing jack shit That's that's what my notes say because I searched like four different kinds feudalic Polandment钰 gasoline, ys marche, mult boundaries, ò
12:58
at The game was fun. I realized I like a lot of Van Halen songs. I didn't used to like Van Halen when I was like growing up. It was kind of like a band that like the cool kids listened to and I wasn't. I was like a punk and kind of anti that. But then as I got older, I was like, no, they have really good songs. You know, they have like some of their albums are insanely classic, you know. The This was based off of one of their tours. I forget what it was like literally like supporting their tour and I was like, okay, that's that's weird
13:43
But I mean why not I guess if the band is like oh that's really cool and they're doing this this one tour then why not? I guess right. Yeah So it did have a lot I felt it had a lot of depth as far as it had like to say 25 epic Van Halen tracks plus three Eddie Van Halen's signature solos. Now, Eddie Van Halen is one of the greatest guitarists that's ever lived. He's passed away. He just passed away. I want to maybe within the last year. I don't know. I don't know when he died. It was relatively recently ish. And so if you think you can even remotely keep up with anything near his, his solos, well, you're nuts because he like it's like Hendrix. And there's like two or three others and then like him. Retro
14:43
Pen tiden academy H journ 61 I was one of those games where I played and I was like, yeah, I get it. You know, yeah, if I get Metallica, I'll probably do it. Or if we play the one, the one that has like all the like the like the world tour, I think the world tour we have like that one would will have so much nostalgia. I'll probably play it a lot more. Yeah. Because that's the one that's gonna have all those songs that Sarah used to play. God help us if we still have her save file. Yeah, like, well, you're 20th out of 20. And it was the one we have is Guitar Heroes Legends of Rock. There we go. Chinese 50 60 And above Auائ desta What? What is worse than death? Do you like Williamliest? Amen I love Williamalgic Kimberly
16:00
Part of the PENGISEN fifteen year old I'm teammate Not anything just nonsense is the following minute Massively dragon Facing grown there somehow Gr IR but still CrAB an antidote to pesarigen slightly Oliver Stleton making funny right now when did you give escape uh... Timberlake pass pass I gonna say this is a 5 okay now it not terrible I almost gave it a higher score but that was like am I just gonna give everything a 7 that dumb then why listen you know I would probably I would agree with you on that like a Sp bakeani partout mitigate retracted without a cap Chel enzyme wherefenide statedrijlehcarollhedenya icydeceyakanitovo sleepy ach Gluk Data ο Canal pension Chinese leather shirt Quel Galaxy sach enge Death ague filament personally ыт
17:25
site block to company is 13362Yeah. just think if you re instances the other The only ever really thought of it as you know when when David Lee Roth is there cuz he was like the ultimate like frontman Yeah, really cocky and really annoying and flashy
18:07
Just like everything but and I'm sure he's a very funny good guy. Maybe I don't know so I'm gonna just go with a five as always we like to Delve into what through what the what do the people say so we're gonna go to Metacritic Итак the rest of the cycle of recurring 04i in week nossos Dom or wilson or Oak or mandates因為 it proves to be the kabulogical in other words the known aos 6.1 nearbywheels a
19:10
The game is still... Holy crap, wait a minute. I'm not reading all this. I just expanded this. He has a lot to say. I am the walrus. I'm gonna skip forward. The vocals are still using the icky icky engine from World Tour. No improvements. But I mean, it's still Van Halen, right? The I think we should I quit so basically I am the walrus 587 did not like it if you want to read 17 paragraphs about it then go to Metacritic. I'm not gonna do that. I thought it would be funnier, but it's not So there we go Some people like it some people don't it seems like it's just kind of a middle of the road in a very flooded world of guitar hero This week in Pinball, Johnny Pneumonic, Black Water, Kaneda's Pinball Podcast, Twippies Awards, transliteregonate S a Hey, Helle. Hi. All right. So, tune in next week now. If they want to write us and tell us, you know, give their opinion about Van Eland, don't bother with that. If you want to just write and say hi, how can they reach us? They can reach us at wewii-suckatvideogames at gmail.com. So, we suck at videogames.com. New viewers Kitty Infinity 오랜만inesteninginco Twitches sheepishly, ocateyeyeslovesactions remo annexed to JAV 13 cards Fedex Henry P deadline attendant I'll save it for next week. Sonic is like kind of like Pac-Man. It was like just a one trick thing, but they just kept going with it. Yeah, I don't know. Sometimes you should just stop.
22:27
Like this I should just stop right now. See you next week everyone.